


chance promises

by mornen



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, Death, Mortality, Slice of Life, War, sugaring season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27283033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: He’s going to war. His king told him not to. His queen told him that it would be futile, this time, maybe any time. So maybe he’s supposed to sit and wait for the end of the world because maybe now he will die and aren’t the Noldor cursed? So why would he work with them? They are Kinslayers. Even Fingon.‘Don’t try to be brave,’ Melian said, ‘if you must go. Fight then, but don’t be a hero. You won’t win this time.’
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	chance promises

There’s a deer in the forest a bit away from Mablung. He watches it as it makes it way through the leaves, nibbling on the shoots of new green grass. It’s evening, and the sky has turned a sapphire blue, crossed with the black of the branches. 

Soon they will tap the trees for syrup. Soon they will have flowers blooming forever, for a season, around them. But now it is the end of winter, only the start of spring, and it is cold.

Mablung leans against a tree. It is an old tree, high and wide: it would take thirty elves to circle it. The branches of it are high enough that he can’t make out the knots on the twigs unless he tries. But he tries, and they show up, and the birds perched on the branches are grey in the evening. 

He’s going to war. His king told him not to. His queen told him that it would be futile, this time, maybe any time. So maybe he’s supposed to sit and wait for the end of the world because maybe now he will die and aren’t the Noldor cursed? So why would he work with them? They are Kinslayers. Even Fingon. 

‘Don’t try to be brave,’ Melian said, ‘if you must go. Fight then, but don’t be a hero. You won’t win this time.’ 

Her eyes were obsidian, and he knew she believed what she said, but he won’t stay behind a curtain of safety in a world filled with long green leaves in the dead of winter, in a world filled with the scent of spring long into the winter. 

Now the scent of spring is earth, the deepness of the dirt, the last rot of the autumn now that the ice is melted. And it may not be beautiful, but it is his world, and he finds beauty in the fragility of it, in the strength that it takes to keep it. And he will fight to protect it. 

He won’t run from the terror that creeps over this world, this world of long winters and springs that smell of soil, not the perfume of undying flowers. This world of blue evenings and summers that end too quickly and rivers that turn to ice.

And he can’t promise that he won’t be brave. Maybe he is already brave. Maybe bravery is doing what he can, however futile, because somewhere there is someone that might need him to put on his helm and travel leagues away to fight and perhaps die. Because the other option is to stay, to not treat with the Noldor, to watch Morgoth spread his will over the lands. 

The mortals are dying. 

And, yes, that’s what mortals do, but they’re dying in torment, and they’re dying in pain, and they’re dying with their hair still black or golden, brown or red, without even the first trace of grey, and they weep, and they mourn, and they bury their children, and it leaves an ache inside his heart that he doesn’t know if he was created to endure. 

So he will leave to fight with the host of Fingon, and he will walk through these woods for maybe the last time and smell the earth and the remnants of last year’s dead leaves, and he won’t pretend that he is making a good decision, but it might be the only one he could live with. 

‘Promise to return,’ Thingol said. ‘We need you, Mablung.’ 

And that could very well be true too, but he is only one person, and he can’t be here and there at the same time, so he has to make choices, but he won’t make promises. 

Because the world is more than Doriath, however much Doriath is a slot in his heart, a piece of his soul. But his soul is the world, as fragile, as cold, as open, as long. 

He feels too much. He cries when his mortal friends die, because they do die. But he makes new friends and then cries again, and he can’t change who he is. He who leaves behind the safety of Doriath to defend Doriath, to defend beyond Doriath, to make promises only to himself in the blue evening of yet another spring. To try, however, tired he may be, to keep going, to push away the weariness and be strong, because there must be strength, and he can manage to be that strength.

The deer pulls another blade of grass from the ground. The world will soon be green again, green leaves with their softness, their newness, the fragility that you can see when the sun, the only sun, shines on them, and the stretched web of their veins. And there will come yellow crocuses through the snow, yellow and purple, and snow white. And cherries will blossom pink and apples will blossom white, and if the battle starts soon, he might not see them again, so he presses his fingers to his lips, and it is a kiss to the world that he may have to leave. Because he can’t imagine a world in which he stays hidden in safety, even if in that world, he could take his chance with promises.

**Author's Note:**

> written for a prompt on tumblr ❤️


End file.
